Stay Down Here Where You Belong

Friday, February 13, 2015

Has it really been this long since I've posted my snotty review of Moonrise Kingdom? I watched it again several months ago and boy, was I ever wrong on that one. The stuff that didn't click the first time around finally did upon a second viewing, and I found myself laughing more than I did in the theater. Now I'd put this one right above Bottle Rocket in my ranking, with Grand Budapest falling between it and Rushmore.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, it's been a long time since I've posted anything. When I look at the list of years along the side of this blog, I see a diminishing excitement for writing, until it petered out completely the last few years. Blogs operate more as personal journals than anything else, and I suppose there was a lot going on in my life that I just didn't feel like writing about. I wrote a novel for NaNoWriMo, but it was a private project and one that I'm not sure will ever be edited into anything substantial.

To be perfectly honest, I don't know why I'm posting this, or if I'll continue to post, or what. I just decided to revisit this blog and was surprised at the anger in the last post. So I guess just to clarify, I was wrong about Moonrise Kingdom. It was a really good film.

Monday, June 18, 2012

You know a movie's bad when, after watching it, you re-watch the director's previous films that you loved just to see if you were wrong all along about them. That's what I did this weekend, with Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, and the Royal Tenenbaums. Thankfully, those movies are still great, and I'm still left scratching my head about what the hell went wrong with Wes Anderson. Apparently, I'm the only one...this movie's making a ton of money (for this type of film) and is one of his best reviewed films. Everyone's calling it one of his best films, some assholes are even saying it's his best film since the Royal Tenenbaums. To that I say both "no" and "are you fucking shitting me?" This movie is, by far, the worst movie Wes Anderson has ever made. Worse than his last live-action stinker, the Darjeeling Limited.

First of all, none of these characters are memorable or even sympathetic, with the lone exception being the Bruce Willis character. The lead, a little asshole of a boy who basically ruins everyone's life by running away from Margot Tenenbaum-lite, is a total shit who's unlikable from start to finish. And don't give me that crap about Max Fischer and Royal Tenenbaum being assholes. Yes, they were undeniably assholes. You know what else? They paid the price for their hubris. Both ended up working shit jobs and being brought low before they can redeem themselves. There was ZERO redemption in this movie, just a couple of irritating, frowny hipster tweens expecting the world to bend to their will because no one understands them and they're in love. To quote Patrick Swayze in Ghost, what a crock of shit.

Anderson also follows his favorite theme of remarkably gifted children, but offers no real background for it, nor any reason why it matters. Fischer was gifted at everything, but it was compensation for being a barber's son, plus his grades were shit. The Tenenbaum children were talented as compensation for having a shit father with no tact. Margot-lite in Moonrise is....a reader. She's also "troubled." She also hates her parents, her mom especially. Asshole hipster boy is an orphan, which is the cheapest way to build sympathy for a protagonist. Oh, he's also a great painter and great at "roughing it." How does that painting add to his character? It doesn't. It was just fucking thrown in there because Wes Anderson likes gifted children.

There's also a scene that's so jarringly out of place, it's like Wes hired Todd Solondz as a guest director. It's the scene where asshole hipster boy and Margot-lite are making out, with tongues touched and everything, and asshole hipster boy gets a handful of tit. Now, I know that directors typically put themselves in their movies, but as soon as I saw this scene, it because blindingly obvious that it's function is as a Wes Anderson/Roman Coppola masturbation fantasy. Misunderstood but talented hip boy meets a troubled "sexy" girl who's into obscure 60s French pop music (I love Francoise Hardy, but don't you dare throw that reference in my face and use "it's from my aunt who lives in France!" as your excuse to name-drop) and has a super-cool secret dance party on the beach? How is this not the masturbation fantasy of two hipster douchebag writers?

The biggest crime of this movie, however, isn't just that it fails as a romance. It's that it's not funny. I'm probably the last person alive who got into Wes Anderson specifically because his movies are funny as fuck, and not because they look pretty. When I see his movies, I WANT TO LAUGH. There were as many laughs in this piece of shit as there are in The Sorrow and the Pity. There were things that I know were supposed to be funny, like the Margot-lite paper-mache head, and Edward Norton being all wacky, and the oh-so-hilarious gigantic tree house, but it all fell flat. The only thing that made me crack a smile was when asshole hipster boy's "father" is called about him running away, and the "father" says that he's not going to take him back. That kind of dark humor briefly brings you back to the glory days of his early films, but then it immediately goes back into the serious business of "love conquers all."

And don't give me that shit about "oh, you just don't like romances." BULLSHIT. I like well-made movies that pay off and earn it at the end. Amelie is one of my top 10 favorite films, as is Casablanca. I'm one of the few guys out there who liked Titanic. Also, fuck it, I liked My Best Friend's Wedding, even though my friends hear me bring that up as an example almost as much as I use Sleepers when playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

This movie sucks cock, and makes me yearn for the days when Wes had Owen Wilson as his collaborator. Bring that shit back, Wes. PLEASE.

Friday, May 18, 2012

Two years ago, I lost 35 pounds in 4 months. After getting my MA, that was the thing I was most proud of being able to do that year, and I still talk about it the way Al Bundy talks about scoring four touchdowns in a single game. However, having to read damn near twenty books for my MA took its toll, and I finally stopped going to the gym and giving a shit about my weight, and worked on my project. I never got back into the workout groove, and gained around 20 of those pounds back since then. Sure, I fiddled with strength training a bit, and made half assed attempts to go back to the gym, but it was never as serious as it was then.

My girlfriend is in a weight loss competition with some coworkers, and both to support her and get rid of my gut, I've decided to get back into the weight loss groove. I'm about two weeks into it and have already lost six pounds, so I figured I'd share some things about dieting that I've experienced.

You have to weigh yourself.

This was the biggest thing that kept me from actually doing something about my weight. At some point, I was afraid to step on a scale and face reality. I knew I was gaining weight, but just couldn't get myself to see exactly how much. When I finally did, I was happy that it wasn't as bad as I was at my fattest, but it was still too much. Right now I weigh myself everyday (every week is probably best, but I don't care) and it's a great way to keep myself in check and prevent myself from gorging.

If you're strictly talking about losing weight, then calorie counting is the only thing that never fails.

I always hear all kinds of bullshit about what you need to do, what you need to check, what foods to cut out, blah blah blah in order to lose weight. It's all crap. People hate doing it, but if you're strictly trying to lose weight rather than having a balanced diet or some shit, just focus on calorie counting. That's it. That's really, truly, all there is to it. Eat fewer calories than you take in. It's the "buy low, sell high" of weight loss. For instance, the first week of my diet I had a spaghetti plate from an Italian restaurant and a bacon cheeseburger from Outback Steakhouse, and because each fell under the calories I was allowed for that day, I was fine. Sign up with MyFitnessPal and it'll set up how many calories you're allowed per day. As long as you're under the allowed calories per day, you will lose weight. To quote George Zimmer, I guarantee it.

The second day is the worst.

I don't know why it is, but the second day of your diet is the most excruciating to go through. Pretty much nothing satisfies your hunger, and you want to gorge on everything in sight. You hate life and you hate your stomach and you hate this stupid fucking diet. Then, the next day...it's gone. I haven't bothered to research this, but I think it's because on the first day of a diet, your body is still unsure about why you're taking in fewer calories than you usually do, and sees it as some kind of odd freak occurrence. The next day, because your body hates change and actively forces you to go back to what was normal, it creates resistance and tries to trick you into cheating. You basically have to tell your body "fuck you, THIS is the new normal" for it to calm that funky shit down. This actually applies to all change, I think, including changing your attitude.

The elliptical machine is the best machine to use to burn the most calories in the shortest amount of time.

Again, this is if you purely want to burn calories and don't give a rat's ass about anything else. I spend 65 minutes on the elliptical machine everyday and burn around 1,000 calories each time. Tell me another machine that gives you those results.

Turkey and chicken are magic meats.

Extremely low in calories and delicious. In fact, one of the more surprising things that you find out when dieting is that meats in general aren't as bad for you calories-wise as you'd think. Steaks are pretty low, too. However, to get the most bang for your buck, you can't beat chicken and turkey.

Servings sizes are typically bullshit.

One of the most frustrating things about calorie counting is when you start discovering all the sneaky-ass tricks that the food industry plays when it comes to calories. If you take a brick of Top Ramen and check the calories on the back, it says 190. Hey, that's not too bad. Then you see the serving size, and it's half a brick. What the fuck? Who the hell eats half a brick of Top Ramen? I remember being horrified when I saw that one of those Mexican fruit pies was 500 calories (nothing slightly bigger than your fist should ever have that many calories), but I actually respect the fact that they weren't bullshitting you about it by saying that it was for "half a pie" or some shit. Hey, assholes at Top Ramen, your brick is 380 calories. Cut the crap and just label it correctly. You'll see this same shit on "fun sized" bags of chips, where it's like 2 servings per bag. Who the hell has ever shared a fun sized bag of chips? No one. Fuck you, food industry. It's best if you view weight loss as a game you can win.

People are always looking for ways to win at games, and weight loss should be the same. One way that I'll cheat is by working out heavily at the gym, which causes the amount of calories I'm allowed per day to shoot up nearly double. I could get a large-sized fast food meal right now and not even feel guilty about it, because I've worked out enough to where my allowed calories per day is higher than whatever the calorie count of that meal would be. Also, if I'm going to get fast food, I can walk for it and keep a pedometer on hand to count the calories I burn on the way.

You have to be OK with being hungry.

At least for a couple of days. You find out that, at a certain point, the hunger passes. When this starts happening, you also get filled by eating less, which may be your stomach shrinking or some other kind of malarky. Know that this is going to happen, and everything will be fine.

Friday, May 11, 2012

It's tricky naming a professional sports team. It has to be catchy, sound right when you say it, and represent where the team resides. The teams below have names that are either completely out of synch with their location, or just poorly thought out to begin with.

The Los Angeles Lakers

I'm going to start off with my favorite team, the Lakers. The name used to make sense, when they were in Minneapolis, but now that they're in a city with probably the weakest "lake" out of any major city, it doesn't go. Also, the name itself was never really that great: lakes are nice, serene, placid, and not at all indicative of the fast-paced excitement of basketball. However, considering how the "slowtime" Lakers have been playing as of late, maybe it is appropriate after all.

The Orlando Magic

Some fantasy elements can work in a team name, I'm not going to deny that. But why the fuck are you going to go with spells and whimsy? I get it...Disney World is there, it's the Magic Kingdom, ha ha very clever. It's still a stupid name considering that magic is widely associated with people pulling absurdly long socks out of their sleeves, guessing cards, and boring adults at children's parties.

The Oklahoma City Thunder

The saddest thing about this one is that the team used to have a really cool name. The Seattle SuperSonics had a nice alliterative ring to it, plus it sounded exciting. Now that they relocated, they opted to change the name to the Thunder, which just sounds fucking boring. It's all sound and fury, causing no really damage and just trying to scare you. Might as well be The Oklahoma Guy That Creeps Up Behind You and Goes "BOO!"

The Washington Wizards

This is how political correctness can kill a team name. They used to have the awesome name The Washington Bullets, but because of gun violence they decided that they didn't want that name anymore and opted to go with the absolute gayest alternative they could find. They went from something that can kill you to something associated with little boys and old men, neither of which typically can ball. Also, they have by far the shittiest logo in the NBA. Just take a look at this fucking thing:

The Utah Jazz

This right here is the biggest, best example I can think of of a team desperately needing to change their name once they switch cities. They used to be the New Orleans Jazz, which is both cool and made sense. Then, for whatever reason, after moving to the absolute whitest fucking state in the union, they kept the name. I keep trying to come up with an exaggerated example of a team having a woefully inappropriate name, but even at the most extreme I can't think of anything as ridiculous as the words "Utah" and "Jazz" being put together. Unfortunately, because the team has been consistently good, they're stuck with that name and it'll likely never be changed.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

I just finished completing the Showa series of Godzilla films. For those who don’t know, the Showa series consists of the Godzilla films made before the 1984 “reboot” The Return of Godzilla, or Godzilla 1985 as it’s known in the States. There’s 15 of these movies, and it was great watching them in chronological order to see when things first started popping up, like Godzilla turning good (Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster) and when the series started going downhill (Son of Godzilla). I’ve always loved Godzilla, and unlike a lot of Godzilla fans, I have only seen the Showa films, since these were the ones being aired on marathons when I was growing up, and the ones I purchased as budget VHS sets when they came out. To celebrate this series, I’m going to throw down some lists. Enjoy!

The 5 Best Godzilla Films (excluding the first one)

King Kong vs Godzilla

Ditch the shitty American version and seek out the original Japanese film. The American film is mangled beyond recognition, and the original stands out as a great satire.

Mothra Vs Godzilla

The final battle between Mothra and Godzilla isn’t that great, but everything else about this film is. Probably the best-looking Godzilla film in the series, and the fantasy elements of Mothra mix well with the brute monster mayhem of Godzilla.

Godzilla vs Hedorah

A Godzilla “art” film. This one’s great because Hedorah is actually a threat, and you see people suffering because of him. There’s fun random animation thrown in between scenes, and when Hedorah starts sucking smoke from the factories, it’s disturbing. The ending kinda lags, but this is a shockingly good film for late in the series.

Monster Zero

This film is a lot of fun, and Nick Adams is terrific as your typical hard-nosed 60s spaceman. The aliens are deliciously dickish and look great as well, plus you have Godzilla and Rodan teaming up to battle King Ghidorah.

Godzilla vs the Sea Monster

I mainly like this one because of how well it ties together both Godzilla and Mothra’s stories near the end, and how Godzilla is used as a weapon again the villains. The Red Bamboo kidnapping people from Infant Island and using them as slaves is nice and disturbing, and even though Ebirah’s just a giant shrimp, he also has personality.

The Worst Godzilla Film: Godzilla vs. Megalon

When I watched this movie I really wanted to be objective about it, since everyone pegs this as the worst Godzilla film. That reputation is well-deserved. In addition to the film just being an overall piece of shit, the most egregious thing about it is that it seems to serve only as a masked pilot for The Jet Jaguar Show, a shitty Ultraman rip off. However, I liked how Megalon looks, almost in spite of how horrible everything else about this movie is.

The dubbing of this film is so shockingly bad, I almost expected the voice actor to say “I rikey vely much!” at some point.

Monster Zero: Godzilla dances a victory jig.

Godzilla vs Hedorah: Godzilla can fly now, and looks like a shrimp.

Godzilla vs Gigan: Godzilla and Anguilas talk to each other (in English).

Godzilla vs Megalon: Godzilla’s awesome new tail slide into Megalon.

Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla: Godzilla transforms himself into a gigantic magnet, which is only slightly less retarded than that issue of Spider-Man where he all of a sudden has powers of “chest expansion” to break some chains.

Terror of Mechagodzilla: Robot Katsura’s exposed breasts during an operation. That one I REALLY wasn’t expecting.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

As a music fan, there's something special about discovering a new genre that you never knew about before, but instantly fall in love with. My own music tastes have been mainly relegated to foreign variations on typical American rock and pop sounds, with the biggest instance of this being the French ye-ye and pop scene in the 60s. My Mt Rushmore of this genre (Serge Gainsbourg, Michel Polnareff, Francoise Hardy, and Jacques Dutronc) are four of the best musicians I've heard in any genre, but when you get right down to it, their music, while brilliant, still works within the confines of Western rock and pop. At its essence, there's nothing much different from it aside from the language they're singing in. It makes sense that I would embrace it, as a fan of the 60s sound and the French language.

Once I got into French pop, I started seeking out other Foreign variants on rock and pop, but nothing ever took hold of me the way French pop did. I loved the Cambodian Rocks compilations, as well as the GS I Love You discs, but each new disc I found seemed to be following the same "garage rock but in X language" style. I never went down the rabbit hole with any of these genres, and my interest stopped with whatever disc I bought. The closest I ever got to looking for more was when I bought a Bollywood soundtrack comp, but I never really fell in love with that genre.

A few years ago my girlfriend and I went to a music store in LA (Amoeba, for those who live here), and I spotted a CD called Thai Pop Spectacular. I was intrigued by the cover featuring two Thai women in short blue skirts and a purple background, and in the lower lefthand corner it said "1960s-1980s." I flipped it over to see the track list/description, and instead was greeted by a smiling Thai woman holding some objected between her fingers. Hmmm. The CD gave me nothing to go by aside from the cover art and "1960s-1980s", but I figured that I'd say "fuck it" and gamble on it. It wouldn't be the first or last time I bought something that potentially sucked on a whim.

When we got home I popped it in and was greeted by the intro, "Welcome to Thailand," which is a somewhat obnoxious clip from a TV show where some very broken English is being spoken. Then, after those :46 seconds are over, track two and the album proper started...holy shit. The first song, Roob Lor Thom Pai kicks off with a slow, sexy beat and surf guitar riff. The singing, which may be off-putting to some, appealed to me in that this was clearly not mimicking Western singing. I remember thinking that, even if this was the only good track on the album, it was still worth the money I spent on it. The following song, Mae Kha Som Tum, solidified my love of this album and the genre. It's more Western, but fuck is it great. It has a great guitar hook and almost sounds like something you'd hear in a spy movie. And yes, this one also had a "sexy" beat to it. It's almost impossible to follow up the one-two punch of those opening tracks, but the next song, Lung Dee Kee Mao, was also really good, and had that unique beat that was starting to appeal to me, but almost straight-jacketed in a pop sound. The next song, Fawn Ngeo by Johnny Guitar, was a great instrumental that sounded both very familiar yet very foreign.

The fifth song, Kwuan Tai Duew Luk Puen, was a kick to the teeth and one of the best foreign pop songs I've ever heard, period. It's a fast-paced disco song and just stomps your ass all over the place. So far on this disc, I had heard three of the best songs I'd heard in years, and even though nothing else on the album came close to matching those three, it was more than enough to win me over.

The music seemed to get progressively "foreign," but still accessible. Songs like Tid Lom Ta Lai and Gao Guek were fun and enjoyable, and then you'd get hit with something like Sao Dok Kum Tai by Pumpuang Duanjan, which is a slow, beautiful ballad. There was so much variety in this album, with it seeming to hop genres and sounds at a whim, that it did something to me that hasn't happened since I first bought a France Gall CD...it made me passionate about the genre.

This is more of a biography than a review, but I recommend Thai Pop Spectacular to anyone with an interest in foreign music. It's more accessible than the Molam discs put out by the same label, but still sounds different enough from what you'll typically hear in a foreign pop compilation that anyone who wants to get their feet wet with Thai pop should start here. There's a sequel to this disc that's also really good, but this one still holds a special spot in my heart.

Friday, April 27, 2012

The Incredible Melting Man is considered one of the worst
films ever made, and has been trashed repeatedly since it was released. "Bad"
is always subjective, and the question that needs to be brought up when
discussing any film is, "were you entertained?" With that in mind, I
have come to praise the unfairly maligned Melting Man, and in my heart of
hearts, I consider this one of the most fun horror films I've ever seen.

The Incredible Melting Man is one of those films, like The
Fly and Robocop, that doesn't fuck around and is pretty much entertaining from
start to finish, with very little lagging. It starts out in space, with three
astronauts going to Saturn. A blast of radiation kills two of them, but somehow
the third person, Steve West, survives. He gets back to Earth somehow and when
he wakes up in a hospital he finds that his hands are blood red and appear to
be melting. When he yanks off his head bandages and looks in the mirror he
discovers that his face is similarly disfigured, and decides that the best
course of action is to chase his nurse down the street and devour half of her
face. Meanwhile, Dr. Ted Nelson, while examining the nurse's corpse, discovers
that it's emitting some radiation, and that he better go find his melting
friend as soon as possible before more people get hurt.

We find out that the reason why Steve's been snacking on
people is because his skin is melting away, and in order to survive and slow
the melting process he needs to keep devouring more flesh. The film turns into
a melting manhunt, with Steve eating people and Ted, along with General Michael
Perry, one step behind, finding dead bodies and gooey parts of Steve scattered
all over. The film's climax takes place at a power plant, with Steve climbing
to the top like a melty human King Kong, and Ted pleading with him to
surrender. Ted slips and falls over a railing, but manages to hold on with one
hand. Appealing to their friendship, Ted convinces Steve to pull him up with
his gooey, dripping hand. Afterward a couple of cops show up and start yelling
at Steve, and Ted, telling the cops not to shoot, is then shot in the face.
Steve loses his shit and kills the two cops, but only after being shot several
times on his charge down. Now that business is taken care of, Steve moseys over
to the side of a building, falls down, and slowly starts to melt away, shown in
loving detail. Morning breaks and a janitor arrives listening to a news report.
The news report states that another mission to Saturn is about to take place,
and the annoyed janitor fetches a shovel and pan and scoops Steve up and dumps
him into a trash can.

This film has an odd mix of horror and humor, and the reason
for that is executive meddling. It started life as a comedy, but the producers,
convinced that a straight horror film would make more money, had the director
cut the comedy scenes and insert more horror scenes. This is presumably responsible
for the only scene in this film that's a drag...the one of the married couple
coming home and the woman chopping off Steve's arm. There's no reason for this
scene to exist, and it drags on with a shot of the woman lying on the floor in
hysterics. Meanwhile, some of the funny scenes that remain are delightful. I
loved the bickering geezers in the car and thought that their scene was very
sweet (until they were eaten). Also, the janitor looking downright pissy about
having to shovel up Steve's melted remains was a great ending and is sure to
put a smile on your face. The comedy that wasn't intentional is the atrocious
acting, but the badness of it is brilliant in its own way and keeps you
entertained during exposition scenes that would typically drag.

There's no "monster hidden by shadows" or much
"leaving horror to the imagination" in this film. Nope. The money's
in the melting man, and you're going to see a lot of him in this film (in broad
daylight, even). This is one of those rare films where you see the monster as much
or even more than the leads, and his gooey, dripping appearance is courtesy of
the brilliant makeup artist Rick Baker. In fact, what we see here is sadly only
a taste of what he had in mind. Initially, he had stages of melting prepared,
where you would see Steve going from scarred and semi-melted to more melted and
then finally to the dripping bag of flesh that we're treated to throughout the
film. Apparently the actor portraying the melted man was being difficult during
his makeup sessions, so some of the stages were ditched, while the ones that
were allegedly filmed sadly hit the cutting room floor, along with the comedy
scenes. But what we're left with is fantastically disgusting. Steve's just
dripping all over the place, with puddles of human goo acting as a breadcrumb
trail for Ted, in addition to finding shit like Steve's ear stuck onto some
branches. Also, for a man who's melting away and dying, Steve seems remarkably
sprite and energetic. He's downright jaunty going through the woods on his
killing spree, running and prancing about with more energy than the normal
characters in this film.

There's just no other way to put it: The Incredible Melting
Man is fucking awesome. I loved this movie and would highly recommend it to
everyone reading this post, especially if you have an interest in "melt
movies," that disgusting sub-genre of body horror where, obviously, bodies
melting are a key plot development. One final bit of trivia is that this movie
was the inspiration for the disgusting melting man that makes an appearance in
Robocop.

Recommended for people who like melt movies and brief geezer
romance scenes.